Microsoft Script Explorer: Next Steps

For those who are familiar with Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell, you know that we haven’t released additional updates to it since we published the release candidate (RC) in August 2012. Over the past few months, we have been talking with customers and partners and taking a hard look at the adoption rate of the RC in terms of the number of downloads and the feedback we’re received to date.

One of the results of this analysis was that the adoption and usage of the pre-release versions of Script Explorer were not at the level we had hoped. Part of this stems from the fact that customers already have a number of options in the market for discovering and sharing PowerShell scripts, and most appear content to continue using these existing mechanisms. As a result, we’ve decided not to bring the Script Explorer project to RTM.

In the meantime, we will start winding down the Script Explorer project. This will be a gradual process to allow time for existing users to move to other tools. We’ll start by removing the RC package from the Download Center this week.

For those who have already downloaded pre-release versions and are actively using Script Explorer in their environments, we will continue to operate the back-end script aggregation service used by Script Explorer for a few more months. We plan to turn off the service on June 14, 2013.

To help with migrating from Script Explorer to other solutions, we would like to highlight a few of the existing options that you might find useful for discovering and sharing PowerShell scripts:

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Thanks everyone for your interest and feedback. For those who are asking about the source code for Script Explorer, it's been available on CodePlex for over a year at scriptexplorer.codeplex.com. Although we are not investing in Script Explorer moving forward, we are continuing to explore ways to help the community and drive adoption of Windows PowerShell.

4 years ago

Andy

I have been looking for an on premise script repository. Got excited when I got to this page only to discover it is discontinued. If you let people know about the project and maybe add some basic version control, audit and scheduling features I bet lots of admins would use the script explorer. I have looked at TortiseHG and VSTF Server but they are overkill for just versioning and reprository for admin scripts.

4 years ago

ARNascimento

Just to add my voice to those that, like me, never heard of Script Explorer, until its demise! At least release it as open source! I'm sure there wil be some folks that will keep the project going, hopefully with more publicity…

5 years ago

DClark

I'll add my name to the list of folks who had no clue that Script Explorer existed.

The alternate methods for discovering PowerShell scripts in the community existed before you assigned Microsoft development resources for Script Explorer. Did you not have a plan that included actually releasing this project? What changed from the planning assumptions, other than over-estimating RC downloads? Will you abandon the work already done, or will you turn it over to the community, should anyone there wish to continue working on it?

5 years ago

Matty

Did not even know the product existed until today, how many others would have tried the product if they knew about it.

5 years ago

Timothy

I had never heard of Script Explorer until CodeProject commented that it was shutting down. Maybe that was the problem? Also, it seems that relying on beta/RC for adoption rates might be misguided. I, for one, rarely use a product until RTM, although I do follow blogs about its development course.

5 years ago

Jay Bazuzi

You could release it as open source, in case someone else wants to take it over.